The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-16
EDITORIAL Brfets.
BY REV. 1. M. ATWOOD. D. D.
Canton, N. Y.

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church or for the denomination is not, as
some delusively imagine, in its buildings
or its funds, or the wealth and position
of its members; nor yet in the number
of names on its roll, but in its life. The
other things are only hopeful to the ex-
tent to which they are signs of life. The
law of prosperity and perseverance in a
church is different from what it is in
business corporation. The latter is made
strong by capital; the former may be made
weak by it. A church which is to-day
small, without material resources or pub
lie influence, if it have life, may in de-
cade OF two outstrip the strongest, most
numerous and influential churches around
it. Life is the only security Of perma-
nence to church.
The comparatively small results Of
the foreign missionary operations are
what strike the mind. The aggregate of
money raised and men sent out seems
large until it is set in contrast to the work
to be done; then it appears almost ridic-
ulous. 1t is like attempting to thaw an
iceberg with the heat generated by a
lucifer match. On the supposition that
all these millions of heathen are on the
road to the orthodox perditon, the feeble.
ness of the interference made by the
Christian world is at once contemplate
and criminal.
The only mitigation the case admits
of is in the view of those who, like our
selves, are able to feel a sense of relief
that incomplete and distorted Christian
ity is making no greater headway in the
world. If the policy Of the Prudential
Committee of the American Board pre-
vails, and only those missionaries are
sent out who teach the least reasonable
and, therefore, the least true Christianity,
it will be an occasion for thankfulness
that the operations are small and the re-
suits meagre. For whatever is done
amiss must be done again. A principal
reason why the Christian religion halts
and lags on the march is that it continu-
ally obstructs its own path with the rub
bish of false doctrines.
1t is point on which the author of
"Universalism Asserted probably insists,
that If the texts relied upon to negative
Oniversalism are to be construed to teach
everlasting punishment at all, they must
be held to teach the very worst forms of
the doctrine. If these texts make it cer-
tain that some will not be saved, they
make it equally certain that most will be
lost. 1t is fact of the deepest signi6-
canoe, that the current methods of inter
preting the texts supposed TO teach eter- Z
nal punishment are not whit more rec
oncilable with their apparent sense than
is\ the method of Universalists. If the
Bible teaches that any will be lost it
teaches that only a few will be saved.
How shall we account for the fact
that SO many persons who are loyal SER
wants of Christ are SO little like the Mas
ter they would serve? We cannot ques-
ton their sincerity: They wish to be
Christ-like, yet those who know them we'll
and respect them thoroughly, are tried
and panied by their obvious unlikeness
to the great model. May it not be ex-
planned by this other fact, that the latest
followers of Jesus, like the very earliest,
are fragmentary in their Christian char
acter because their conceptions of him
are fragmentary? The quality or trait
they see and admire and initiate is true
Christ quality; but to have the tone and
effect it has on him, it needs to be set in
the same association with other qualities.
Alone IL is almost a distortion
Mr.. Edward Atkin son puts the prov
erb, "When you have it all you can have
no more" in particularly forcible shape,
in the figures he submits to the readers of
the Century on the Margin of Profits" in
the manufacture of cotton cloth. If his
facts are trustworthy-andf few men are
more careful in statement--ther is well
known and inhexible limit to the profits of
this manufacture, under existing condi-
tions. Of these profits capital is quite con-
tent to get its six per cent on its invest
ment. Four per cent more is absorbed in
necessary repairs and improvements. All
the rest goes to the operative He may get
less than he would like, or less than he
needs, but when he gets all there is, nei-
ther Knights nor strikers can help him a
particle.
IF the writers of books of every kind
would considerably remember that we,
the public, are cramped for time, that we
grow old fast, that our eyes are early
dimmed with much reading, and that we
really do not care to have them tell us
their whole mind, they would take time
: to " boil it down." 1t is said that among
the educated classes in Germany diseases
of the eye, induced by straining the optic
nerve, are nearly universal. What with
their abominable type and their inter-
minable treatises, blindness is likely to
happen unto them in part. In the En-
glish-reading countries we are threatened
with sorer evils; for on top of the badly
printed newspapers and the formidable
Sunday papers and the avalanche of our
own books, must be piled the regular de-
posits Of German literature, now believed
to be essential to good scholarship. We
therefore add to the litany, :" From all
2 long-Winded works good Lord deliver